The hymn of the day, Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (LSB
398), is a fitting hymn of praise to the Son of God made flesh and anointed at
His Baptism. Especially in stanza 2, it recounts His coming to heal those beset
by the consequence of sin in the world. But more than providing just physical
relief, He comes that their darkness turn to light, to relieve us from
the eternal consequences of sin.
Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun!
To help the poor and needy, and bid the weak be strong.
Whose souls, condemned and dying, are precious in His sight.
James Montgomery (1771-1854) followed in the footsteps
of two poetic luminaries—Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. In many hymnals he is
well represented, third only to Watts and Wesley for British hymn writers
before 1850.
Hymnologist Albert Bailey notes that “One cannot call him a great poet, but he
knew how to express with sincerity, fervor, simplicity and beauty the emotions
and aspirations of the common Christian.”
Montgomery’s father was a minister, and his parents
later served as missionaries to the West Indies. James remained in Yorkshire
and was raised from age 6 in a boy’s boarding school administered by the
Brethren of Fulneck. Montgomery later said, “There, whatever we did was done in the name and for the sake of Jesus
Christ, whom we were taught to regard in the amiable and endearing light of a
friend and brother.”
He began writing poetry at age 10, inspired by the
hymn of the Moravians, the same group that inspired John Wesley. Despite
flunking out of school at age 14, Montgomery found a job in 1792 at a radical
weekly newspaper, the Sheffield Register.
He assumed the leadership of the paper not long after,
when the previous editor fled the country fearing persecution for his politics.
At this point, Montgomery changed the name of the
paper to the Iris, and served for 31 years as editor, during which he was a
tireless supporter of social justice. He was jailed twice for his radical
views, using the time in prison to write poetry.
This hymn was originally an eight-stanza poem, a
paraphrase of Psalm 72 written in 1821 for a Christmas leaflet, “Moravian Ode.”[1]
Collect for Epiphany
5: O Lord, keep Your family the Church continually in the true faith
that, relying on the hope of Your heavenly grace, we may ever be defended by
Your mighty power; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and
reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.[2]
[1] https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-hail-to-the-lords-anointed
[2] Collect for Epiphany 5, Lutheran Service Book © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis
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